I was unprepared for the interview and it's a pity that I didn't know
too much about the band beforehand. Therefore the questions are pretty
general.

Q: What's the difference between the German and the American
audience?

A: David B.: I have to say personally that they are very
appreciative about what we're doing, the German audience, they much more
appreciative....they're really into what we're doing. And we feed upon
it, we had a great time.

A: Andy: It's more of a listening crowd a lot of them
know our songs, you know, I mean, people know our songs in America, but
here people ask for specific songs, they'd come with their favorites. So
it's nice, that they are there to hear what we're doing.

Q: Can you explain what kind of music you are making if
you want to explain it for the German audience. How would you call your
kind of music? We say also insurgent music, americana, nodepression, alt.country
and so on. What would you say to explain it?

A: David E.: Rock'n Roll.

Q: That's all?

A: Andy: I'd call it accoustic rock'n roll, lyric-driven,
but obviously some to it is not accoustic

Q: Not Country Music?

A: Dave B.:I don't think we are country, we're country-influenced
rock'n roll. But if you say country, people think 'big hats' and ...

Q: What do you think about Garth Brooks?

A: Dave E: Garth Brooks is not what we are listening to.
That's not the music where our influences comes from. He's got a nice hat.

A: Ted: We were happy that he is successful it's just
not what are we doing. It's just a different thing.

A: Dave B.: I was influenced recently by the English bands,
guitar players, of course, the Jeff Beck, Jimmie Page people. But I'm also
a kind of support player. So I was like Mike Cambell of the Heartbreakers.
He's a great guitar player.

Q: I heard a little Pink Floyd tonight?

A: Dave B.: Yeah, David Gilmoure, you know, I listen to
a lot of things and I just kind of

subconsciously pick it up. I sit down and learn licks,
per note per note. I subconsciously put it away and I pull it up from time
to time and surprise myself.

Q: Dave, if today some other band would come up to you
and offer you $ 500 for one night, would you play with them and be the
lead guitarist or would you prefer to stay with the Rainravens instead.

A: Dave E.: Every man has his price. (laughing)

A: Dave B.: I have to say the Rainravens are the priority,
but if by chance we're not working and we have some time off I think that
goes for everybody we sit in and play with other people. Just for a change,
it's healthy I think and it keeps everybody stretching out a little bit
here and there. Right now I have to say the Rainravens ....I have to say
that because I'm sitting here with all of them. This is where my heart
is right now.

Q: Ted told me the same before.

A: Ted: Yeah, the shared experience of being in a real
band where everybody is really a member of the band, it's not like we're
all working for one other guy. We love each other as friends. We love to
play together. We've been together three years. The reason why is because
there's a shared experience in the creation of these songs. Andy writes
the lyrics. He's a great lyricist in my opinion. Dave is a great guitar
player and Dave is a great bass player. We worked so well together that
while we do enjoy other peoples music and we do enjoy playing from time
to time with other people there's something very special about a shared
experience that you don't get from being hired by somebody else and that's
very common in Nashville and in other cities you'll see a lot of bands
with a lot of hired players and they stand on stage and they seem to be
bored with the music. They don't even care about what they're doing, it
is just a job. This isn't just a job, this is our life. We want to care
about it the way that we did when we started.

Q: And how about the Blues? What part does ist play in
your life?

A: Ted: Not so much the Blues. I think we're a little
happier than the Blues. I mean, it's not an easy life but it's not so hard
as to say that it's like the Blues. We enjoy what we do, we love what we
do.

Dave E.: Who said you have to be sad to play the Blues?

Dave B.: The Blues was created to take the hardship out...
the Blues was created to lift people out of their hardships and their sorrows.
It was a way to get over that.

Dave E.: I think a lot of people when their start playing
the Blues because the chord progressions are easier, it's a common ground.
We'd all kind of start doing some basic Rock'n Roll, Chuck Berry, whatever,
Muddy Waters, just kind of grow from there. So I think it's in there somewhere.

Q: We had an interview with Jay Farrar and we asked him
what he does when he gets the Blues. He said he'd play hockey. What do
you do when you feel down?

A: Andy: Well, I don't know, I don't really write from
that point of view. When I get really depressed I don't want to write.
So I have to get out of it. I usually write when I'm in a more neutral
place. I don't really generally sit down and write a song and get over
it. Sometimes we do. Like 'So far gone' I wrote in one night from a really
bad weekend I was having.

Q: How long does it take you to write a song?

A: Andy: It takes me a long time. It takes weeks, sometimes
months. Because I let them sit for a while. I work on them then I let them
sit for however long, maybe work on something else. Because I think if
you go away from it you work on it subconsciously and get ideas rather
then try and make it all happen at one time. I think it can be better if
you work on it really hard and then you back away and just let the subsconscious
work on it. The shortest one was 'So far gone', which was one evening but
it's very rare. ''Dim Light, Small City" - five years. Because I just didn't
make it a priority. It was just sitting around for a long time. Usually
between one night and five years (laughing).

Q: Terms like 'highways', 'neonlights' or 'heartaches'
are used in many country songs. Is there for you a difference when you
sing about these things and when, for instance, Garth Brooks does it?

A: Andy: I think there is a difference. Maybe it's a matter
of credibility...

A: Dave B: ...integrity...

A: Andy: ... yeah ... Like Lowell George, could sing a
song like 'Missing you', a real simple song. It's not contrived. I think
a lot of these country guys ... it's all set up to make you feel a certain
way, it's like pulling strings.

A: Dave E.: I think they use it in a more the superficial
manner to try to appeal to as many people as possible, to try to sell as
many albums as possible. I think when Andy use terms like that it's more
depth to it.

Q: Andy, you're voice sounds a little bit like Jeff Tweedy's.
Is it difficult for you to be compared to him?

A: Andy: Whenever people say it it's fine with me. I've
been singing probably a lot longer than he has. I like his music, but I
wasn't really influenced by it. I grew up listening to songwriters like
Jackson Browne and Bruce Springsteen. You know, when I heard Springsteen
I started singing further down in my throat. And Tom Waits ..., Tom Waits
is one of my very favorite artists. When I heard those guys I started pushing
down in my throat. Townes van Zandt, John Prine and all those guys. I like
the Wilco album, I like the Son Volt album, but it wasn't really an influence,
because it's been pretty recent and we've been playing quite a long time.

Q: Is there another contemporary band that influences
you right know?

A: Andy: A lot of songwriters mostly, like Eric Taylor,
Bill Morrisey, Terry Clarc and Van Morrison from Ireland ... the Rolling
Stones have always been an influence.

A: Ted: It is generally easier for people to compare you
to somebody that they already know because that person is already been
marketed and they are big and they are famous and so it easy to compare
to another band, easier than to say: 'Well, Andy sounds like or this band
sounds like ...' And you can say 'harmonies', you can say 'guitar', you
can discribe the sounds, but it's so much easier to say the name of a band
and don't want to say the name of a band, because I want you to think of
us as being the one that someone else sounds like.

A: Andy: I think it's ok, though, because if people like
Wilco and somebody says we sound like Wilco, maybe they will come and see
us.

Q: You are not copying them ...

A: Dave B.: No, I never heard Wilco until after I read
a review of our album and somebody said we sound like them, so: 'Who are
they?'. I didn't know who they were.

A: Andy: I think we've developped our own sound. I'm confident
of that, because the sound we have in Rainravens is four people, four specific
people, and if one person was not there it'd be different, it'd be a different
sound.

A: Andy: Gram Parsons, of course, we are into that, I
mean, I am, and Hank Williams ..., yeah, I didn't really grew up listening
to him, but I appreciate him. I'd say neither one of those guys are my
main influence, but I ... have the records.

Q: You don't play a song by Gram Parsons?

A: Dave B.: I stole a lick from 'Oooh, Las Vegas', you
know, the little ... (hums the guitar lick) for 'Welcome to Nashville',
it's a little breakdown.

Q: What is Austin, Texas, to you?

A: Ted: It's home. It's a really good feeling, too. We
can go out and see the world and play music, but we have this very special
place to call home, where springwater comes up and is fresh and you can
go swimming ...it's a place where it is comfortable, it's a creative place.

Q: A last question: What do you know about Germany?

A: Ted: For us, really, what Germany means is that there
is a man named Edgar H. at Blue Rose Records. And that's our connection
to Germany. He brought us here. He put our record out, the first one and
now the second one. That is what mostly Germany is about for us that there
is a man over here who likes what we do and he's helping us to share it
with the world.